Category Archives

On March 12, the WICS president, Angela Liu presented to a group of prospective high school female computer science majors. She answered questions about what its like to be in computer science, why they should do computer science and what they can do with computer science. About 25 people attended her talk and were all very glad that she talked to them and helped them understand more about computer science.

WICS & VGDC Resume Workshopby Michelle Tjoa

On Monday, the 21st day of October in the Donald Bren of ICS building, WICS and VGDC had a joint Resume workshop. Around 50+ people came to either help others or be helped. What was amazing about the event was the great amount of inputs from all those who were experienced and wanted to help by sharing their knowledge and experience with others and also the deep interest those who didn’t have experience or wanted to learn. All the members learned how to improve or start resumes which can help in the long run with resume building and career searching. When I went to the resume workshop I was also amazed at how many people were really involved and really wanted to improve their resume and what they had in their resume. It was also interesting to see people quickly build the resume they didn’t have before coming to the workshop. I also brought a resume and got tips and pointers on how to improve the resume and learning new tips and lessons I didn’t know or thought about before. There are simple little things that could be overlooked, like a bigger name, better organization of resumes and the list goes on. The people who were helping out were also really reliable and professional, so the sources were very trustworthy. It was also a great experience to meet other people, who were just as involved, excited, and friendly. Can’t wait for the next resume workshop to meet new people and improve my resume once again.

iOS Beginner Workshopby Gurveen

On Monday October 13th, Phillippe Navarro and kendrick parks taught a beginner workshop on iOS development. Phillippe taught the basics of Swift, and he has taught a Full-Stack Development class in Irvine and was previously an instructor for General Assembly.

The student turnout for this workshop was MUCH greater than expected. We had about 100 students show up for the workshop! All in all, it was a very informative seminar, and it gave students interested in iOS development a brief introduction.

WICS members got the opportunity to attend the Celebration of Women in Computing in Southern California (CWIC-SoCal) Conference held on April 5th and 6th. WICS provided attendees reimbursement for signup fees as well as free transportation!

The event kicked off with a welcoming ceremony that consisted of talks from inspirational women in the computing field. The talks were held by a broad scope of women all united by the core concept of computing. The backgrounds of these women ranged from industry to research. In fact, Gloria Mark, a professor from the Informatics department of UCI also held a talk of her research of multitasking.

The WICS members learned about grad school, what these speakers do, and about women in the tech field in general. There was also a Q/A panel with company representatives as well as a mentorship panel. At the end of the first day, CWIC-SoCal also held an Academic/Career Fair with quite a few company booths, swag, and networking opportunities. That night ended with a Lego Challenge and a game of CS jeopardy. The winners of the lego competition, 5 groups of 5, all received $25 Amazon gift cards, congrats to one of the WICS’s teams that won!

All in all, it was a very exciting weekend that consisted of fun and networking with other women students and professionals in computing. Next year, WICS will be hosting init(Together) once again, stay tuned and don’t miss out!

Monday, Mar. 3rd, WICS hosted a series of mock interviews. Around 20 people signed up for this great opportunity! Representatives from participating companies such as 21st Century Fox and Northrop Grumman held one-to-one mock interviews with students. They allowed students to practice their interviewing skills and receive feedback on how to improve these skills from industry professionals.

WICS hopes to host more mock interviews in the future to allow students to have more practice for their future job or internship interviews!

Thursday, February 20th, WICS hosted a training workshop to teach students and potential volunteers how to use LittleBits and Snap Circuits! These simple snap on circuits are fun to play with and makes circuits easy to understand. Students enjoyed trying to create really cool things out of them and some came out to help at our LittleBits Workshop with Brownie Troops.

Monday, February 24th, 6 volunteers from WICS assisted over 20 Brownie Troops as they played around with LittleBits and Snap Circuits to build an understanding of circuits! The Brownie Troops had lots of fun using their creativity to test and make the LittleBits and Snap Circuits do entertaining things such as lighting up, changing the color of the light, making sounds, and so on.

WICS is looking forward to working more with Brownie Troops! Volunteers are welcome anytime to join the fun experience!

On Sunday, February 9th, 6 volunteers from WICS came out to help 7 Brownie Troops with earning their Computer Expert Badge! It was an educational yet fun day for the Brownies; they got to experience using computers to paint a picture, take a virtual museum tour, play an online game, and much more! (To see more details, see their event website) This was an insightful experience for the volunteers as well, seeing that the 6-8 year old girls having a lot more knowledge on computers compared to phones; it looks like there is a new generation of Computer Scientists!

The workshop was very successful and WICS plans to do more with girl scouts in the future to continue teaching young girls about technology.

WICS awarded every participant that turned in their websites on Wednesday, December 4th. Winners were chosen and awarded $25 Amazon gift cards along with the winners of weekly challenges at project meetings!

Congratulations Team 7 (Mrunmayi Vyawahare, Kelly Kwan, Emily Nguyen, and Yaritza Cuevas) for making the best website and Team 9 (Stephanie Eng, Angela Liu, Alina Lam) for winning the most weekly challenges!

WICS will be building more projects in the future, one for each quarter! Stay tuned for Winter Quarter’s project theme. For more information about WICS Projects, click here.

Monday, December 2nd, WICS organized an Hour of Code workshop that targeted undecided/undeclared majors at UCI. Over 20 students interested in coding not only got to learn how to code but also socialize and have some fun before finals week.

In celebration of Computer Science Education Week, WICS assisted students in learning the basics of code through simple and creative online tutorials. Multiple difficulty levels of tutorials were provided and allowed students of any background to play around and experiment within the hour. Students also had a chance to socialize with WICS members outside the computer lab with provided snacks and drinks.

WICS would like to thank everyone for coming to this event right before Finals. There will be future workshops similar to this one, don’t miss out!

Monday, October 14th, over 40 people attended the resumé workshop that WICS co-organized with the Career Center.

The Fall Quarter Career Fair was right around the corner and this workshop was to help students learn how to create eye-catching resumés that would land them an interview easier. Mark Carolino, the ICS School Career Counselor, gave a presentation on creating ICS-specific resumés and let both experienced and inexperienced students stand out.